Can fans trust the Tour de France?

Jul. 4, 2013
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The pack rides during the 176.5 km sixth stage of the 100th edition of the Tour de France cycling race on July 4, between Aix-en-Provence and Montpellier in southern France. German rider Andre Greipel won the stage, while Daryl Impey became the first South African to wear the overall leader's yellow jersey. / Pascal Guyot, AFP/Getty Images

So, as the Tour pedals through the Mistral, southern France's howling winds, past the medieval castles, intricate crop circles and cows, cycling fights to answer short but complicated questions.

Is the Tour clean? How do we know? Can the sport overcome the Armstrong fallout?

"Cycling's had a lot of problems, but it's worked hard to correct those problems," said Garmin-Sharp team manager Jonathan Vaughters, who doped as part of Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service team in the late 1990s and then, in retirement, became one of the leaders in the fight to clean up the sport. "It's statistically proven the most tested professional sport in the world, is the first sport to index tests and use the biological passport."

"If you look numerically at the climbing speeds at the key climbs of the Tour de France, the decisive points of the race, the speeds have consistently come down, each year dropping lower and lower and lower, despite the fact that training methods and equipment have gotten better. Empirically, scientifically speaking, mathematically speaking, you can win the Tour de France today clean, period," Vaughters told USA TODAY Sports.

The Tour's first week did cross into mainstream American sports news, but for point-and-laugh storylines cycling's most ardent supporters may not have preferred. A team bus got stuck under finish-line scaffolding in stage one. A stray dog nearly caused a pileup near the end of stage two.

Then there are the shadows left by Armstrong, this being the first Tour since his record seven titles were stripped and his long-awaited doping admission, on television to Oprah Winfrey. Armstrong also sparked the biggest pre-race headline the day before the first of 21 stages and 2,100 miles when he told France's Le Monde newspaper that, in his era, it was impossible to win the Tour without doping.

The less noticed storylines: the 100th Tour promises to be a spectacle. Sport's annual travel log began in Corsica -- France's "Isle of Beauty" -- and scheduled epic mountain stages, including an ascent up Alpe d'Huez and its 21 switchbacks not once but twice in one day.

There's also no defending champ: Bradley Wiggins pulled out for health reasons in May, adding intrigue over who will wear the yellow jersey in Paris.

The six U.S. riders -- the smallest contingent since four in 2008 -- are a mix of generations. Christian Vande Velde and Tom Danielson used erythropoietin (commonly called EPO) while with Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams, respectively, and drew reduced six-month suspensions for their cooperation with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation of Armstrong. Their bans ended earlier this year.

Brent Bookwalter, 29, is racing his third Tour and Ted King made his debut at age 30, though he was disqualified for finishing outside the time limit in Tuesday's team time trial.

Most U.S. eyes are on Tejay van Garderen of Boulder, Colo., and Andrew Talansky, of Banner Elk, N.C., a pair of 24-year-olds seen as the best U.S. hopes to win a Tour in the near future.

They are the offspring of Armstrong's era, both 10 years old when the testicular cancer survivor won his first Tour in 1999. Through no fault of their own, they must deal with questions of trust. Can fans believe in their performances?

"It's harder for those guys because of the way the sport was in my generation and previous generations," said retired U.S. cyclist Levi Leipheimer, another former Armstrong teammate who testified and received a six-month ban. "Rules weren't enforced and abided by for a long time."

'Can win the Tour clean'

Van Garderen, who finished fifth in last year's Tour, grew up with an Armstrong poster on his bedroom wall. Talansky, a surfer who quit school in 2010 and moved to Europe to become a pro, reminds Vaughters a bit of Armstrong's ambitious personality.

"When you first get on a bike, you know Lance's story, or what we thought the story was," Talansky said, sweating, while on a stationary bike outside the Garmin-Sharp team bus after a 132-mile stage in Corsica. "Of course, he seems like a hero. But the truth has come out, and the real heroes are the people who are working to promote change."

After his declaration that he had to cheat to win, Armstrong said on Twitter that he did not know if the Tour could be won today without doping.

"I'm hopeful it's possible," he wrote to nearly 4 million followers.

"It's been done," Van Garderen said before the Tour. Van Garderen is a teammate of 2011 Tour winner Cadel Evans and still believes Armstrong was the real winner of those seven Tours (Armstrong's main rivals also admitted to doping or are widely believed to have cheated.)

"I full-heartedly believe that you can win the Tour clean now," Talansky said. "Bradley Wiggins did it last year. Cadel Evans did it the year before that. There's no doubt that you can win the Tour clean. The winner this year's going to be clean."

Yet cheaters persist. Two Italians tested positive at the Giro d'Italia in May, including a stage winner and the 2007 champion of the race, one of the three biggest stage races in the world along with the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espa√Īa.

Doping may never be eradicated, but even those whose job it is to be skeptical ‚?? journalists who cover the sport ‚?? point to heightened anti-doping measures and race statistics as proof that cycling has changed:

In 2008, cycling began use of the biological passport, which establishes a baseline for athletes and monitors their blood statistics over time for unnatural fluctuations. Track and field and tennis have since latched onto the program, an indication of its success.

Others have compared power and speed numbers from a specific climb in the Giro d'Italia this year to the same climb six years ago. Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport reported that the Giro champion did it in 18 minutes this year, while the 2007 winner (one of the Italians who tested positive in May) needed just 15:30 six years ago.

Testing samples were taken from all 198 riders before the Tour de France began. Every day, the stage winner and the overall leader are tested after the stage. There are also random tests. Wednesday's stage winner, Brit Mark Cavendish, was woken at 6:30 on Thursday morning for a surprise urine sample. Roughly 500 blood and urine tests will be given to riders during the Tour, race officials say.

"I contend that the sport is probably the cleanest it's ever been in the history of the sport," said Andrew Hood, a Colorado native and VeloNews correspondent covering his 18th Tour, who also cautiously pointed out that Giro climb was done in a snowstorm this year. "Even back in the day, in the '20s and '30s, they were doing whatever they had to do to win. There was no doping controls, really, until the '60 and '70s. There were no real serious doping control until the last five or eight years."

Regaining fans' trust?

As for pro cycling's place among American sports fans, "there's no way to win back the trust overnight," Leipheimer says.

Enduring European enthusiasm enveloped sun-splashed streets to Montpellier on an 80-degree Fourth of July. The usual rows of spectators, three and four deep near the finish, waved flags, towels and orange construction cones.

The onlookers will grow in number and excitement in the Pyrenees this weekend. Thousands of fans typically line Tour mountain climbs, the crazies draped in national colors, even costumes, running close enough to cyclists to engage in conversation at the steepest portions.

Those images have been transmitted live on NBC Sports Network (formerly Outdoor Life Network and Versus) since 2001. Before that, ESPN offered tape-delayed coverage.

Versus' network daily average viewership was around 300,000 in the three years after Armstrong retired following his last win in 2005. Armstrong came back to race in 2009 and 2010, when the numbers jumped to 530,000 and 456,000, respectively. The last two years have averaged 334,000 and 290,000.

USA Cycling's combined number of licensed riders, coaches and officials has risen each of the last 10 years, though its greatest increases came when Armstrong was on top.

Hood says "it doesn't matter if Lance Armstrong doped or not. People are still going to ride their bikes."

Likewise, sponsorship has not taken a hit, though the doping problem translated to discounted deals for companies. There are five teams at the Tour either based in the U.S. or with an American sponsor. That's a strong number, Hood said, but the reality remains that most backers are cycling-specific companies, led by bike geeks or more akin to national bodies than independent businesses. That U.S. electronics company Belkin recently joined the fold is a positive sign.

The easy answer for cycling to pump up popularity ‚?? or at least attempt to ‚?? is for another U.S. champion to emerge. "Americans love winners," as Hood said.

Whoever prevails, this year's Tour champion is sure to be both celebrated and scrutinized. Is it possible for a clean cyclist to dominate as Armstrong did?